Idle Threats
by Fenikkusu Ai
Summary: When a mutual friend ends up dead, Jack ends up in a possessive mood about one Yusei Fudo. Written for 50 darkfics. Prompt #88--Rope


Title: Idle Threats

Author: Fenikkusu Ai

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds

Characters: Jack Atlus x Yusei Fudo (hints)

Prompt: Rope

Word Count: 943

Rating: T

Author's Notes: Takes place roughly when Yusei is 11-12 and Jack is 12-14. Johnny is an OC that serves his purpose.

Disclaimer: I do not own YGO 5Ds or any of its properties.

* * *

Yusei hunches near a trash can to sort out his thoughts. He's a mess-- shaking and sniffling, taking care to keep his sobs low so the blond teen looming above him can't hear.

"How damned stupid," Jack sneered as he crushed the spent cigarette into the asphalt; its purpose fulfilled. "I mean, we're all going to die _someday_, so why exploit the process?"

In reply, Yusei can only shiver; the odor of the mess he'd projectiled into the stinking trashcan on the air.

Now, many would say Jack was a bad influence. But, in Satellite, who wasn't a bad influence? Everyone down to your father, brother, or best friend could be the one to take you to hell and back—provided that any of the listed relations were still alive.

And, sometimes you didn't come back from hell.

Jack was still continuing his tirade. "A _coward_. That's who," he answered his own question. "Johnny's a coward… or _was_ a coward," he finishes dramatically.

Jack could talk a good game, but Yusei couldn't help but notice those slender fingers shake as Jack lit up yet another just as slender cigarette. Jack was rattled as well, but could find the resources to hide it better. Perhaps it was the nicotine. Jack always said it did wonders for his nerves.

Mewling softly in pain, Yusei rips out the stubborn splinter that had been poking out of his skin; allowing fresh tears to mix with old.

Despite all the hidden dangers that could be lurking within, the alleyway is a comfort; a reprieve from the dark images that had nearly consumed him only a short half-hour ago…

* * *

Yusei and Jack had wanted to see Johnny. To his dying day, Yusei would never forget how vacant and quiet the rooms at the top of the rickety staircase had been, how Johnny's apartment door had stood threateningly ajar, and how _bent_ Johnny's broken neck looked in that makeshift noose; his feet swinging above the toppled over chair.

It had taken Jack only two seconds to appraise the situation with wide-eyed horror before coming to his senses.

"Let's go!" Jack's voice broke the deathly still air as he grabbed the scruff of Yusei's neck and propelled him so blindingly fast down those stairs that Yusei feared for his _own_ mortality.

In desperation and a bone-deep sorrow he was just beginning to understand, Yusei remembered clinging to the loose peeling banister for dear life. He had then cried out in pain as the splinters firmly lodged themselves inside his flesh when Jack ripped him away from his little slice of safety.

"Let's _go_, I say!" Jack had snarled. "I _don't_ want any trouble, Yusei!"

"But, he's our friend!"

Yusei remembered how Jack had stopped dead at the bottom of the staircase for a flicker of an instant. "Dead men can't be friends, Yusei."

Yusei had stared into Jack's wild violet eyes before he had been unkindly swept across the rotting floorboards like a heavy, burdensome knapsack towards the door. In Jack's panic, the front door of the crappy "apartment complex" (really no more than a hovel of odd rooms that had unfairly been put up for rent) had slammed open with a bang; shards of wood flying.

"Stop makin' so much noise out there, ya damned kids!" a slightly drunken voice had roared from somewhere at the top of the staircase. "I'ma gonna come out there—

Before, anyone could "come out there," Jack and Yusei had bolted out of the building into the always available night.

"He's dead!" Yusei had still been wailing in a plaintive tone that had clearly annoyed his friend, the evidence of this proved when Jack's hand met his cheek.

_SLAP._

"Hush that crying! It won't do any good now!"

…then mindless running.

Everything had jumbled together after that.

* * *

"Well, Yusei?"

Having shaken himself from his reverie; Yusei looked up to Jack's impatient features. A spiral of smoke was weaving its way around the older boy's head from the lit cigarette dangling loosely from his lips. Yusei had obviously missed the question, so he asked one of his own as he uselessly wiped at his eyes.

"Why did he do it, Jack?" he whispered hoarsely.

Rolling his eyes, the blond teen gestured to the slime-coated alley around them. "Get a _grip_, Yusei. How do you think anyone in our position could possibly kill themselves? It couldn't be our lovely environment, could it? Look at our parks, our public fountains, our little flower-bordered cottages, our…"

"Stop it!" Yusei suddenly exploded.

Jack glowered down at him. "This air is slowly killing us, Yusei. The water. _Everything_ is contaminated. But, in my eyes, you're still a coward if you do what Johnny did—taking the easy way out."

Yusei drooped his head away from him like a flower suddenly cloaked in shade. It was then Jack roughly grabbed his chin so he could stare directly into Yusei's cobalt eyes.

"But, _you_ won't ever do that…not to _me_…will you, Yusei?"

_Yusei._ Jack habitually used his name at the end of every sentence as if he couldn't get enough of the taste of the name on his tongue.

Numbly, Yusei met Jack's gaze and gave the answer he desired with a mute shake of his head.

Jack seemed vaguely relieved. "That's good. Now, get your ass up off the ground before I drag you up."

Yusei complied before following after Jack.

"I swear, Yusei, you're in luck that I'm the one that will keep you alive."

Yusei kicked the concrete wall of the alley in a repressed anger on the way out that consisted of Johnny, the world, his life, and _him_.


End file.
